Elisabetta Palagi is Associate Professor at the Department of Biology (University of Pisa). She holds a master’s degree in Biology and a PhD in Evolutionary Biology. Elisabetta has been studying social carnivores (dogs, meerkats, lions, spotted hyenas), horses, sea lions and most of all primate species, including lemurs, monkeys, all the African apes and humans since 1992. She published more than 180 papers on international journals on a wide array of topics bridging sociobiology, multimodal communication, social cognition and conflict management. Her comparative studies focus on the evolutionary significance of play, conflict resolution in social groups, sociosexuality and the behavioural patterns underlying emotional contagion (facial mimicry/yawn contagion) as a mean to understand the evolution of empathic abilities in human and nonhuman animals. Most of her studies have attracted a strong media interest (i.e., New Scientist, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Science Daily, Smithsonian). In 2020 she has obtained the Animal Behavior Society Fellowship Award for her contribution to the study of animal behaviour.
